Ed Kuepper is the original guitarist of The Saints, the frontman of the Laughing Clowns and The Aints, a member of Nick Cave's Bad Seeds and formerly a prolific solo artist. He's a pretty cool guy, too. Over two nights, he played two short solo shows at the Famous Spiegeltent. Each night he "reimagined" an old album of his: the first night was ( Read more... )

I saw Swans at The Forum on a bit of a whim, and to be honest, I only knew a little bit about them. Like that they were dark, dreary and depressing. That they were loud and abrasive. I really hadn't heard any of their music either, aside from a couple of short samples from their most recent album, the awesomely titled My Father Will Guide Me Up a ( Read more... )

This year's Mark Prindle Reader Survey was simple: just send in a list of songs that you love. To be honest, I probably botched this one. Mark's request was that the list could have up to 73 songs, but I set myself a limit of 20 songs. On reflection, I should have just listed as close to 73 songs as possible, rather than having a much smaller ( Read more... )

Yeah, I do like Neil Diamond. He's written plenty of great songs, and I'm quite the fan of his 2005 album 12 Songs. I haven't delved too deep into his other albums, and I'm well aware that he has a lot of lame, sappy songs, but I figured I should at least see him once ( Read more... )

I saw Roxy Music frontman Bryan Ferry play a solo show for charity a few years back. It was a pretty good concert, and the two support acts, Joan Armatrading and Daryl Braithwaite, were quite entertaining as well. But the one thing that really stuck in my mind was how old the audience was. I was convinced that Carmen and I, bar the staff, were the ( Read more... )

Paul Kelly does A to Z shows from time to time: over several nights, he will do a series of shows, and play a selection of his songs in alphabetical order. Following the release of his book, How to Make Gravy, he's been on an Australian tour, playing four nights in various cities, and working his way through his huge back catalogue. I missed out on ( Read more... )

Bigger bands don't play Geelong very often: they seem more likely to play shows in the smaller city of Ballarat than Geelong, which is pretty annoying. So when it was announced that Wolfmother would be playing at the Eureka, Samantha and I decided to go. Plus, since we knew in advance we were seeing Wolfmother in Geelong, we could skip them at the ( Read more... )

Despite my thoughts that the line-up maybe wasn't as good as last year, I still decided to go to the 2011 Big Day Out because... Well, it's still usually a lot of fun. This year, a fair few people went: Samantha and I, Julia, Jarrad, Simon and Lachlan, as well as Dean and Emily and Igor as well. As it always seems to be the way, the weather was ( Read more... )

Another Australia Day passed, another Hottest 100 done.

First of all, where did the songs I voted for place? Well...

• Arcade Fire - Ready to Start - #63 (Video)
• Best Coast - Boyfriend (Video)
• Boy and Bear - Fall at Your Feet - #5 (Song)
• Brandon Flowers - Crossfire (Video)
• The Bedroom Philosopher - Northcote (So Hungover) - #91 (Video)

Another year, another Hottest 100. This time I resolved to actually vote on my holidays, well before the completion of the countdown and not at the last minute, like the previous years' submissions.

So, what did I vote for this year?

• Arcade Fire - Ready to Start (Video)
• Best Coast - Boyfriend (Video)
• Boy and Bear - Fall at Your Feet (Song)
• Brandon ( Read more... )